Or at least I do when I can coax enough people into playing something. Last night at my grandparents I managed to four of us to play Dominion. My Nana actually caught on pretty quickly and ended up winning, which was cool. Anyway, the big burden is not being able to play with people.

UNTIL NOW

Yes, shut ins rejoice, there is a thematically awesome solo boardgame that was released last year and is now available on reprint (if you're lucky). It is called Mage Knight and it looks to be the shit:

Essentially it mixes elements from various games. Your actions are represented by a deck of cards full of things like 'move' and 'attack' but also useless cards like 'wounds' which you sustain during combat. Your actions are dictated by said cards, the rest of the game takes place on a hex style board which from what I can gather is randomly generated as you play. Hexes can be blank or have keeps, dungeons or monastaries on, you can enter these to get embroiled in random events from typical Dungeon quests to being given an mysterious item from a Monk. Shit looks like this:

Onywho, reviews tend to explain it as a puzzle game in essence. Trying to eke the best out of the partially randomised nature of your hand each turn, to win, however that is done. RPS linked me on to it, basically explaining it as Kings Bounty in cardboard form. AND YOU CAN PLAY IT ON YOUR SAD FAT LONESOME.

I am plenty excite for this, I will buy it with this months pay, as long as I'm not fired by then.

Something that always interested me - was a primary source of indoor entertainment in the pre-Pong era of course though the modern games seem to be pretty deep and the main problem is finding enough like-minded people.

The videogame equivalent holds an interest too - the distinctly not Mario Party title on Wii called Boom St (aka Fortune St. aka Itadaki St.) is a quite well done "Monopoly Plus" by Square with Mario and Dragon Quest branding that has been around since the 16bit days. Has been JP only until now - think it had a PS2 outing as well.

Something that always interested me - was a primary source of indoor entertainment in the pre-Pong era of course though the modern games seem to be pretty deep and the main problem is finding enough like-minded people.

Jesus, like you wouldn't believe. It bewilders me that people will tolerate Cluedo and Monopoly which generally just don't work very well at all, but they aren't willing to try something like Catan which can be picked up in one game and feels a lot less random than Monopoly as the four resources mean that you will nearly always need to trade.

Space Hulk and Advanced Space Crusade were great, I was a total Games Workshop addict back in the day.

Loved the models more than anything, and had lots of random Citadel stuff, both Warhamer and 40K. My huge (upto 5000 points) skeleton army was my pride and joy. Lots of conversions using masses of green stuff. All long gone now though.

My favorite part is playing your game back after smugly looking out the window for most of phase 3 thinking you've totally bossed it only for it all to go HORRIBLY WRONG and everyone getting killed by a space nebula.

Wookie going pointlessly up and down the elevators for three turns is also a highlight.

Speaking of GW I pop briefly onto the website to see what they're pedalling this season and apparently it's the Fucking TerminatorÂ (via The Matrix I guess) That's... quite cool, if outrageous.

Spent about forty minutes browsing after opening up that link. I'm seriously considering buying a few pieces just to build and paint. Thought these would look proper nerdyÂ cool on one of m'bookskhelves.

Space Alert is completely wonderful. Â I wish you all lived on my street so we could do some of the persistent campaigns, but I reckon it's crying out for a "play by Skype" system. Â It'd add so much to the effectiveness and immersion; the communications officer is the only one with the soundtrack playing, so actually has to stop us and tell us what's going on. Â The resolution phase can be played out on the captain's board, with everyone else looking in. Â It'd be great!

I played Space Hulk a lot when I was young and I'd love to dig it out again. Â The Deathwing expansion had solo play rules which worked really well. Â The smart thing was that Genestealers were effectively animals, so it had them obey some simple animalistic rules and you could play on your own.

Shame the fuckers discontinued it and immediately released a limited edition, so now if I want to play it again I need to find about Â£30000 on eBay.

Speaking of GW I pop briefly onto the website to see what they're pedalling this season and apparently it's the Fucking TerminatorÂ (via The Matrix I guess) That's... quite cool, if outrageous.

Spent about forty minutes browsing after opening up that link. I'm seriously considering buying a few pieces just to build and paint. Thought these would look proper nerdyÂ cool on one of m'bookskhelves. Â

Do quite like the notion of a wee pimp, somewhat Egyptotech cyberskellington adoring a shelf in the parlour. And I'm quite sure I'd be very good and painting them.

In my early teens I used to play the old GW stuff like Fury of Dracula, Warlock of Firetop Mountain, Dungeon quest before moving onto Adeptus Titanicus & Space Marine(used to play that on my mates patio as we had so much kit). We also dabbled in Space Hulk & Deathwing(with the tiles being 3 wide we used to use a Rhino Aliens APC stylee) before moving onto the Aliens game from Leading Edge Games & finishing with the Marvel Super Heroes games from TSR(I think) before uni/jobs/life got in the way.

Skip forward 20 years & I now have a group of friends(& the wife) that I regularly Play Settlers of Catan(just with the 5/6 player expansion) & Carcassonne(with various expansions) with almost weekly with & a few bottles of plonk. Its great fun, getting hammered & trading like a man possesed whilst trying to keep my lead at Catan on the old points table, alas I am not so dominant at the 'sonne.

I have the Horus Heresy board game(newish version) as I am a still a 40/30k nut(I have read all the Black Library series) but I have no one close who shares my love for that universe, so its gathering dust & taunts me each time I go to the cupboard. *sobs*

With my kids I play Ticket to Ride & er..... Bristol Monolopy.

I am intrested in Space Alert, is it easy to pick up?

I am also intrested in the Space Hulk: Death Angel as it can be played solo.

....& if you can stomach the Wheaton & leave your Weasley Crusher hate at the door, the man has gone onto produce a Youtube show called Tabletop with the hot(imo) Felica Day where he rocks through various games with his geeky b-list buddies.

I'm helping out at the Games Britannia festival in Sheffield next month, showing kids how to play some obscure board games. Not sure which ones yet, we've got some pre-festival playing to do first, familiarise ourselves with the rules of ones we've not played.Â

Arkham Horror is definitely on the list though, looking forward to trying that!